dancing at dusk

Last night I took the tripod and camera to the patio with hopes of capturing the light changes on the mountain as the sun set.

I took photos every 5 minutes and was surprised how quickly the whole process was over.

Next time I think I'll try every 2 minutes.

Good-night mountain.


After the last shot of the mountain I walked to the west side of the house and photographed the sunset.

weekend waltz

This past weekend we accidentally stopped at a neighborhood garage sale (accidental because we were just making a quick trip to the bank). We found some excellent treasures. Here are some of our bargains put to a 3 count of a waltz


1 (very fun red bicycle bell)


2 (muffin tins)

3 (yard tools)


1 (stud finder)

2 (bike helmets)

3 (extension cords)

1 (stuffed Scooby Doo that says I wove you. My husband was wearing his Scooby Doo t-shirt when we went to the sale)


2 (Trek mountain bikes loaded with accessories)


3 (bar stools)

dance of the snowbirds

It happened virtually overnight (or so it seemed).

One day our little community had a population of 42,000 and the next thing I knew it had exploded in population to it's wintertime numbers of 77,000. That's about 35,000 people who flock to this area to escape the cold winter chill.

I first noticed the increase when I visited the post office. It was well after the noon-time rush but there was a huge line of patrons waiting. I decided to do my farm market shopping and stop by the post office later. When I went to the market I found it was so crowded with people it was like an obstacle course and it was necessary to wait my turn to pick my produce out of the bins.

Here's what Wikepedia says about Snowbirds....

Snowbirds are typically retirees, and business owners who can afford to be away from home for long periods of time or have a second home in a warmer location. Some snowbirds carry their homes with them, as campers (mounted on bus or truck frames). It used to be that snowbirds were the wealthy who maintained several seasonal residences and shifted residence with the seasons to avail themselves of the best time to be at each location.

A significant portion of the Snowbird community is made up of RVers. Many own a motorhome for the sole purpose of traveling south in the winter. Often they go to the same location every year and consider the other RVers that do the same a "second family". There are places like Quarzsite, Arizona that have been labeled "white cities" because from a bird's eye view all the motorhomes cover the landscape in white and then in the summer are gone.

Photo by Wikipedia

Although I haven't had much chance to interact with our new feathered friends I had already noted that the elderly people I have met in the community are typically friendly and happy. They aren't in a rush and enjoy talking. I guess if you need to double your population happy and friendly people is the way to go.

javelina hoe down

The first few days we were camping I was very careful not to leave "smelly garbage" in the trash outside our tent...but then one day I forgot. We had friends join us for lunch at our campsite. As we combined our foods to create a yummy lunch of tuna-avocado salad sandwiches I discarded some avocado and tomatoes that had passed their expiration date. I believe the smell of these rotting veggies wafting from the plastic bag tied to a chair in our campsite was responsible for drawing the wildlife to our tent at 2 AM in the morning.

I awoke to a bump in the middle of the night. Then there was a crash. As I nudged my husband to see if he was awake and aware of the intruders, I heard the plastic container with our food stash being overturned and emptied. As my husband removed his hunting knife from the mesh shelf over our bed I began praying in tongues. I pictured a bear devouring our food and then searching the tent for desert. As we felt around in the dark trying to locate the keys to the truck we heard our visitors begin to squabble over our garbage. Their noises changed from huffing and puffing to snorting. I relaxed a bit when my husband announced that our visitors were javelina and not the bear that I thought.

Photo from Wikipedia

Once we located the truck keys we were able to startle the large rodents out of our campsite by hitting the alarm button. We exited our tent, plugged in a spotlight, and joined our tenting neighbors who had been awakened by the rumpus. The men started out on a javelina chase armed with one hunting knife, two handguns, and as many rocks as they could find. They chased the garbage thieves through the woods and away from our campsite.

After a bit my husband returned and we gratefully climbed back into the warmth of the sleeping bag to finish the rest of the night.

The next morning, in the light of day, we found our uninvited guests had not only consumed our garbage but two loaves of bread that had been in our food container.

The moral of this story: always removed the smelly garbage from your campsite before going to bed.

Sedona Shuffle

On the weekend we had a free morning so we headed to Sedona with our friends Jessie and Renalee.

Since I had never visited Sedona before, we did a quick tour of all the "must see" spots including the Catholic Church built on the side of the mountain

and bell rock ...
It was a beautiful day, the views were stunning, and the company very enjoyable.
Next time we visit Sedona I'd like to explore some hiking trails....with my camera, of course.

dancing in hiking boots

We camped this past week at Camp Yavapines in Prescott, Arizona. Although much of our time was spent at meetings celebrating the Feast of the Tabernacles the last morning of our stay my husband and I took off adventuring around the campground. After a short time we saw our friend Jessie had climbed up to the top of a hill. Not to be outdone, we set out through the brush for the same hilltop.
The brush we climbed through was dry and the seeds and stickers from the weeds quickly found their way into my boots..... a stop to clean the pickers off my socks was necessary.

There were interesting things to discover.... lots of colors of rocks and colorful lichen growing on them...

as well as the typically camera shy lizzards...

not to mention a rugged mountain man posing at the top of the hill.

the morning after the campfire dance

After sending my husband out the door at six am this morning I started the task of unloading the pickup including a mound of dirty laundry. After being gone a week...being out of the routine...everything seems a bit disoriented...but I did have a beautiful sunrise on the mountain to greet me.

dancing 'round the campfire

Don't look for me here.....I'm camping!

paint brush prominade

Recently the anticipation of company inspired me to get out the paint and bursh and put a fresh coat of paint on our front door. I'm always surprised what a drastic improvement a little paint can make. The door was previously painted a pale yellow. The paint job was poor so at spots you could see through the brush strokes to the previous color.






Along with the dirty, shabby paint job the door was suffering from a screen that was showing signs of wear. I used a decorator's trick of drawing the eye away from the flaw you don't want people to notice. I stiched the "Welcome Friends" sign on the aging screen. Now when someone aproachs the door their eyes linger on the welcome sign and the screen goes unnoticed.


So...if you happen to be in the neighborhood know you are welcome....just don't look too closely at the screen.

Tiptoe through the tomatos

The saguaro cactus in our back yard looks a lot like one of the Veggietales characters...long, skinny, green with two bulging eyes...thus I have given him the name Larry the Cucumber.




Recently my husband came home one evening with potting soil and a single Roma tomato plant.

I am now in charge of making sure Bob the Tomato plant gets watered regularly.


Bob, Larry, and I have been spending some quality time together the last few days. This weekend we are hosting a gathering to celebrate Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) and we hope to be able to have the onge (banquet feast that will break fasting) outdoors. It appears the weather will be cooperative (cooler temperatures are expected with high of 85 and a few clouds) and we have plans to light our yard with tiki torches.

In order for this to happen I have spent several hours preparing the yard.

Before...


"Lawn care" in Arizona is quite different that what I grew up with in Michigan. Every so often you will see someone with green grass they water and mow but for most a manicured lawn involves gravel that has been made free of any weeds.


Our yard had become quite weedy the past two months as I had concentrated my efforts on getting the house put together.

After...

Although I had to remove some pickers from my fingers and have the tell tale sore leg muscles from so much bending I'm pleased to announce that Bob, Larry and the yard are all looking quite good today.

Dancing in the Raw (food)

Recently I've been leaning about eating raw. My initial interest began when a friend from Michigan began educating herself about raw foods. She would try new recipes and bring samples for me to try. I was impressed with the flavorful dishes she shared. A few weeks ago I got an email about a raw food speaker/author (Paul Nison) that was going to be in the Phoenix area. I attended two of his lectures, the first a biblical perspective of a raw diet and the second where the focus was on the scientific reasons to eat raw. After the lectures I visited the local library and checked out books on juicing and eating raw. I've been making juice drinks in the morning for a couple of weeks using fruits and vegetables from the local farm market. The drinks, especially when I include Kale or Romaine lettuce, remind me a lot of the green sludge my brother Keith used to whip up in his blender when he was focusing on weight lifting.



Yesterday I made a cole slaw that included two types of cabbage, carrots, cumin, fresh garlic and cold-pressed olive oil. The garlic and cumin combination make it a slaw that is not for the faint of taste bud but for those who like food with an attitude it's a winner. My husband, after tasting the slaw said "this is amazing".

Dancing to the Rhythm (of an international beat)

This morning I rode into the city with my husband to pick up a car a friend had borrowed. My plan was that after getting the car and sending my husband off to work I would drive another 15 minutes to the Ten Thousand Villages store and redeem the gift certificate we were give as a wedding gift (thanks She!)


There was a slight modification in my plans when after getting the car and entering the expressway traffic I noticed it was shaking badly before I even reached 55 mph. I called my husband and he directed me to the nearest Costco with the hopes that balancing the tires would fix the problem. Once a Costco I took a quick look at the tires in a effort to gain any possible information that might help me answer the questions I would inevitably be asked. When I got to the last tire, the right rear I was shocked to find a gash one third the way around the tire so that I could see the steel radials sticking out (I'm not sure if that's what you call them but it sounds good here). Praise YHWH (God) he was watching out for me so that tire didn't blow while I was driving on the expressway.

Long story short, I bought a new set of tires today. After an hour of lunch and wandering the asiles of Costco while chatting on the phone I was back on the road again headed to my original destination. I found the store with not too much problem thanks to my GPS, Tina Turner.


The stores in the plaza were upscale shops including Chico and Talbots. I was tickled to see they had a misting system ...a very cool idea-no pun intended-of spraying an area with a light mist to keep you cool in the dry desert heat...although I did hear the weatherman say that Friday it will cool down a bit and is only expected to reach 98 degrees.


For those of you who are not familiar with the Ten Thousand Villages stores they are a connected to the Mennonite Church and sell products from artisans around the globe using fair trade practices. If you have never visited their stores I would encourage you to check them out on the Internet at www.tenthousandvillages.com

The store was packed with a wonderful variety of beautiful products that make just looking fun. But today I was going to have extra fun as I had money to spend...well, at least I had a slip of paper that said I could spend some money.



The products were artistically displayed in color groups that were very pleasing to the eye. Each item was tagged with the name of the country it came from. As I moved from one section to the next I found lots of beautiful things that I could have spent that gift certificate on.


Before going to the store I had visited their website and decided ahead of time that I would like to purchase some cloth napkins and maybe napkin rings both to be green (by not using paper napkins...something I thought my husband would appreciate) and also to make a pretty place setting with my new dishes. However...


When I entered the store the first display I came to was musical instruments... from drums to wooden flutes to singing bowls. I knew immediately that this was were my husband, had he been free to join me, would want to spend our certificate. Not only does he enjoy experimenting with a variety of instruments but he has also been wanting to find a way to help the young children in our Messianic fellowship be able to join in the worship.



After making my way around the store several times while engaging in a pleasant conversation about Ghana and Haiti with the sales woman I finally made my purchases. Two sage green cotton napkins from India....



and three fun but not too loud rhythm instruments.

dances with wolves

OK...so maybe "dances" and "wolves" is a slight exaggeration.....












how about... backs away from potentially wild dog while shooting pictures with camera










....this morning I took the shortcut, a dirt "road" between two paved streets. When I emerged from the gravel I saw something
standing in the road ahead of me.








What it was I wasn't sure, javelina, coyote, wild dog or stray?....I got my camera out and started shooting...he turned so that I could see it wasn't pig but rather something in the dog family.



Friend or foe I could not know.



I took a step or two in his direction and he turned and began walking towards me.




OK...maybe not too smart to continue this direction. I stand still and continue to shoot, he continues to slowly move in my direction.




I begin walking backwards around the corner of the street, keeping one eye on the animal while spotting the nearest front door I might knock on. One hand is on the camera button and the other holding my walking stick/paint pole intended to fight off wild creatures.


The critter continues to move even as I back away.













I near the second house...one that has four or five dogs in the fenced yard and the wild animal finally decides to find a new route.










I finish my walk anxious to return home and see just how much I can detect from the photos I've shot. He looks to meaty for a coyote and his coat is too dark. Maybe hes just a stray pup as he has that low to the ground look.








Still uncertain of what it was I encountered the matted nappy coat makes me glad I didn't try to get any closer.